Hi,
I have a Dell server that has a Perc S100 RAID controller. Two WD1003SZEX Black 1tb drives were fitted and they have been running fine for the last several years.
Then one of the disks developed bad sectors. The disk was extracted. The model number obtained - and a disk of the same model ordered.
This disk arrived and was connected up, but the RAID controller won’t add it to the RAID set as it says it is an SSD and therefore not compatible.
Therefore, as it most certainly isn’t an SSD - something has gone astray.
Is there any possibility that the older disk is 512 byte but the newer one of the same model is 4096 byte?? I can’t check this myself without removing the disk from the server, but I imagine this might fool the RAID controller into thinking it might be an SSD?
Is there any difference in firmware that might cause this?? Again, I can’t check whilst the drive is behind the RAID controller. I know WD don’t provide firmware for non-enterprise drives so if this is a factor, I could be in real trouble!
Is there anything else that might cause this?
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Thanks.
Hi AWebber,
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hi,
We have a very slimier problem.
Our new WD black HD is recognised as SSD.
Our raid controller doesn’t start rebuilding RAID1, although the new WD HD is assigned as “global hot spare”.
Could you give us an advice ?
Our raid controller is,
Perc S300 (DELL PE T110II) with the latest firmware
WD black hard disk product ID is : WDC WD1003FZEX-00K3CA0 with revision 01.01A01
Thanks in advance.
Hi,
Sorry to hear about your issue.
Sadly we are no further forward with our server. The Western Digital blanket response, that they didn’t add to this thread - is basically, they aren’t enterprise drives so we don’t support them in servers. They said we should have chosen “Gold” drives - even though those weren’t even around when the server was purchased. I have tried to buy a pair of gold drives and they aren’t available anymore. I think this is because WD purchased Hitachi DeskStar, and these are now the current enterprise offerings from WD. Maybe even their helpdesk doesn’t know this yet!!. Reluctantly, we now have some of those on order so we can attempt to sort this mess out.
I do think the responses from WD to this situation have been rather poor. Although they did initially respond privately, there’s been no reply to my subsequent queries.
I also queried this rather odd situation with Dell and there’s been nothing back from them at all…
It’s sad that once even expensive items become a couple of years old, nobody wants to support them anymore. I guess that’s the disposable society we live in.
If you do get anywhere with yours, I would be most grateful to hear how you got on.
Hi AWebber,
Thank you very much for your information and update.
Would you mind giving us the revision number of your original WD black hard disk ?
Our new one is revision 01.01A01.
As your old WD black hard disk has been recognised by PERC controller, before,
I reckon, our problem is cased by WD black new firmware, which we have powerless with, though…
Hi,
No problem at all. I am always pleased to help insofar as I can.
The Hard Disk that was failed in the RAID set has firmware 01.01A01
Unfortunately I don’t have remote access to the server, so I can’t currently tell you the firmware of the disk incorrectly showing as an SSD.
I am suspecting it is likely to be newer firmware on the drive that the Dell controller is mis-interpreting. The same issue is shown in the controller BIOS which eliminates the software on the server as a cause.
As out servers are different Dell models, I guess we can rule out a BIOS update.
Did you say you had updated the firmware on your PERC controller? I haven’t done that as yet and will avoid it if it didn’t help you out.
Best wishes,
hi, sorry about my late reply.
The following is the information, in regards to our PERC S300 controller.
Firmware Version 2.0.0-0166+00193000
Driver Version 2.0.0-0162
Storport Driver Version 6.1.7601.18386
We updated PERC S300 firemware about 1 year ago. We didn’t have any problem at all.
We asked DELL a quote for a replacement hard disk (1TB SATA), as we couldn’t dear to purchase WD gold…
DELL said £132.33 ex. VAT.
kind regards,
